Obama Moves May G-8 Summit to Camp David From Chicago

Barack Obama, president of the United States. Photographer: Ron Sachs/Pool via Bloomberg

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama dropped plans
to host the Group of Eight summit in his adopted hometown of
Chicago and instead will hold it at Camp David, the presidential
retreat outside of Washington, the White House announced.

A meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that
originally was planned in tandem with the summit still will be
held in Chicago on May 20-21. The G-8 leaders will meet the two
days before at Camp David, which is in an isolated area of the
Catoctin Mountains about 62 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of
Washington.

“The president felt that Camp David would provide an
informal and intimate setting to have a free-flowing discussion
with his fellow leaders,” National Security Council spokesman
Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

The change of venue made so close to the scheduled summit
date was unusual for an event that brings together the leaders
of the world’s industrial nations and is typically planned as
much as a year in advance. The White House announced plans for
the dual summits in Chicago last June.

Obama “started contemplating a couple of weeks ago in
conversations with aides,” said Caitlin Hayden, a National
Security Council spokeswoman.

Host Committee

Rachel Bronson, vice president for studies at the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs, one of two partners on the Chicago
Host Committee, said the group only learned of the change after
the White House made the announcement.

“We’re disappointed,” she said in an interview. “There
was a lot of concern that it was coming here because of protests
and now there’s concern that it’s not coming here.”

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s chief of
staff until October 2010 when he left to run for the office,
released a statement today wishing Obama “and the other leaders
well at the G-8 meeting at Camp David and look forward to
hosting the NATO summit in Chicago.”

Emanuel said that “hosting the NATO summit is a tremendous
opportunity to showcase Chicago to the world and the world to
Chicago and we are proud to host the 50 heads of state, foreign
and defense ministers from the NATO and ISAF countries in our
great city May 19-21.”

Hayden said Obama speaks regularly with Emanuel “and
consulted with him on his decision, as well.”

Meeting Topics

The administration doesn’t expect significant agreements to
emerge from the G-8 summit, according to an administration
official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the planning. The
meetings will be focused on discussions on issues including the
global economy, the European debt crisis, nuclear non-proliferation and Iran, the official said.

The G-8 is made up of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany,
France, Italy, Japan and Russia.

The May gathering will be the first trip to the U.S. for
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin since he won the country’s
presidential election yesterday.

After building a warm relationship with Russia’s president,
Dmitry Medvedev, Obama needs to invest time and energy into
building bridges with Putin, said Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow
of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s important for Obama to establish some personal
relationship and personal chemistry with Vladimir Putin,” said
Kuchins, who said Obama got a “cool reception” when he met
with Putin during a 2009 Moscow visit.

The atmosphere at Camp David, located in wooded hills and
away from an urban area, is akin to that of some past summits,
including the 2004 meeting at Sea Island, Georgia, and the 2010
summit in Muskoka, a vacation resort in Ontario.